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A round orange pumpkin sitting on its vine among green leaves and grass.
2026-08-07gardenfarm-diaryaugust

The Frontrunner and the Houseguest

The frontrunner

There is one pumpkin this year that matters, and by the end of July it had gone fully orange while still sitting on the vine. Round, clean, no soft spots.

It nearly caused a panic. From a distance there appeared to be a hole chewed through the top — the kind of thing that ends a pumpkin's season in a week. It turned out to be a leaf lying flat against the skin, veins showing through, doing a convincing impression of damage. Nothing had touched it.

The plan from here is to keep the best one or two fruits and pin the vine tip past the keeper, so the plant stops spending on new starts. The backups stay until the winner is at least softball-sized, because young pumpkins drop themselves for no reason anyone can see, and it is a bad idea to cull your insurance early.

The rest of the patch

Zucchini are arriving faster than anyone asked for. There was a spaghetti squash in the last haul that got earmarked as a turkey treat before it made it inside, and the San Marzanos are ripening at whatever pace each individual plant has decided on — one red, several stubbornly green.

The squash blossoms are the best-looking thing out there and last about a morning.

The gourds work nights

The bottle gourds are on the trellis and flowering, but you have to go out in the evening to see it. Pumpkins and squash flower yellow in the morning; bottle gourds flower white and open toward dusk, which is why this one was photographed at five to eight.

No fruit set yet as of this week. The vine is climbing and blooming, so it should be soon, but there is nothing hanging on the netting to photograph.

Riki

We are dogsitting an English bulldog named Riki for the week.

He came out to the yard on a long lead and got introduced to the birds, which went about as well as it could — the turkeys walked over to see what he was, and he sat there and let them. No barking from either side. Pawel and Pawleen did their own inspection on the patio two days later and reached no conclusion.

Mostly he lies in the grass in the shade of the house and watches the flock operate around him, which is a reasonable way to spend August.

Elsewhere

The sunflowers have goldfinches on them from morning on. One of the roosters has taken to standing on the fence rail above the garden beds like he is supervising the work.

Photos

A round orange pumpkin sitting on its vine among green leaves and grass.
The keeper, still on the vine, 30 July.
A Yorkshire terrier in a striped sweater standing beside an orange pumpkin in the pumpkin patch.
Scale reference, provided unwillingly.
A pumpkin patch of broad green leaves with tall corn behind it, a small orange pumpkin up the row and a Yorkshire terrier sitting in the grass.
Corn behind, a second fruit up the row.
Two open yellow squash blossoms among grass and leaves.
Squash blossoms, open for the morning.
Zucchini, a spaghetti squash and a few red and green tomatoes laid out on the lid of a black tote.
Zucchini, spaghetti squash, stubborn San Marzanos.
A white, crinkled bottle gourd flower against large green leaves.
Bottle gourd in flower, just before eight in the evening.
A white and black rooster standing on a wooden fence rail above fenced garden beds.
Surveying the beds from the rail.
A yellow goldfinch perched at the top of a sunflower plant.
The sunflowers have goldfinches on them all day now.
Two turkeys, one white and one dark, standing in front of tall green stalks.
Turkeys working the tall stuff at the edge of the patch.
An English bulldog on a lead doing a play bow on the lawn.
Making his case.
An English bulldog sitting on the lawn while several turkeys and chickens walk around him.
First meeting with the turkeys. Nobody blinked.
An English bulldog lying on a stone patio while two Yorkshire terriers in sweaters look at him.
Pawel and Pawleen conducting the inspection.